


I Got You, Babe

by crownjules



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Apocalypse, Humor, Impossible situations, M/M, Romantic Comedy, idk don't question things too much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 08:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16404767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownjules/pseuds/crownjules
Summary: When Jongin made a promise to go on a date with Baekhyun only if he were the last man on Earth, he didn't expect to actually have to follow through on it





	I Got You, Babe

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt B70
> 
> shoutout to the mods for making this fest possible, you guys are the greatest and ily!!!!!  
> and thank you to c for being my greatest cheerleader and hyping me up when i felt like deleting everything and starting over idk where i'd be without your reassurance
> 
> i hope you enjoy!!

There are too many people here. Jongin sidesteps a girl who’s too drunk to realize she’s in the way and weaves around her to get to the kitchen where he hopes he’ll find Sehun. He’s not sure why he even let Sehun talk him into coming here when he knows he wasn’t going to have any fun. 

Something gets thrust into his hands as soon as he steps into the kitchen and they see that he’s empty-handed. Jongin nods a thank you and pretends to take a sip so the guy that gave it to him will let him go. He’s had a few already. Sehun obviously isn’t here, so he makes a quick exit. 

The living room shows no sign of him either and Jongin doesn’t have the energy to keep searching, so he plops himself down on the couch. There’s a couple on the other end of the couch getting a little handsy with each other and Jongin watches them for a minute before the girl looks up from her date and glares at him. Feeling a little creepy, Jongin quickly averts his eyes. 

He sinks lower onto the couch, letting the bass reverberate through his insides and scans the room for his friend. Instead of Sehun, his eyes land on Baekhyun Byun—probably on the prowl for his latest fling. Unfortunately, Jongin thinks his next victim might be him. He had kind of hoped Baekhyun had given up on this endeavor; by now he’s lost count of the attempts.

Baekhyun’s face lights up when he spots Jongin on the couch and he makes a beeline for him. Jongin quickly looks for an escape route, but it’s too late.

“Hey, Jongin.” Baekhyun says, sliding into the empty space next to him on the couch. 

Jongin sighs, accepting his fate. “Baekhyun.”

“Having fun?” Baekhyun asks. Somehow he makes it sound sleazy. 

“Not particularly.”

“I know a few ways we could.”

Jongin scoffs and Baekhyun laughs at him, elbowing him in the side. “It’s just a joke, Jongin. Jeez, I almost forgot you were so uptight.”

Jongin doesn’t say anything. Instead he stands up, this time determined to actually find Sehun. 

“Aw c’mon, Jongin,” Baekhyun tugs on the back of his jacket, forcing him back down. “Why don’t you go out with me some time, it’ll be fun.” 

“No thanks,” Jongin says. He would rather die. 

“Am I that horrible?”

The alcohol is starting to make Jongin’s head buzz and his brain to mouth filter isn’t working properly so he says, “Yeah probably.”

“Okay, so what’ll it take to get a date with  _ The _ Jongin Kim. Tell me, I’m all out of ideas.”

Jongin scoffs again. As if he was anything special. If anything, he should be saying  _ The  _ Baekhyun Byun. The guy had more friends than he could count and Jongin couldn’t fathom why. Every interaction he had ever had with him had been a nightmare. 

“I don’t know,” Jongin shrugs, “probably if you were the last man on Earth.” 

“Harsh, but I’ll hold you to it,” Baekhyun laughs.

Jongin does his best to suppress an eye roll. “You do that.”

Just then he spots Sehun walk into the room followed closely by Chanyeol Park. Why is Sehun talking to Chanyeol Park. Chanyeol is Baekhyun’s best friend. Sehun is well versed in Jongin’s distaste for Baekhyun. He’s fraternizing with the enemy!

Sehun locates Jongin and Baekhyun on the couch and points them out to Chanyeol; the pair start making their way over. 

“Can we get out of here?” Jongin asks Sehun as soon as they’re close enough that he doesn’t have to shout. 

“Uhm,” Jongin can see the reluctance on Sehun’s face and his friend guiltily looks down to where his and Chanyeol’s fingers are linked together. 

Gross, they’re holding hands. Well, it looks like he’s on his own now that Sehun has decided to betray him in the name of love—or probably lust. Jongin doesn’t know or care at this point. 

“Ugh, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Jongin says to Sehun, pushing up from his spot on the couch. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow too,” Baekhyun winks.

“No, you won’t,” Jongin calls over his shoulder. Baekhyun’s obnoxious laughter follows him all the way to the door.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Jongin is going to be late.

Instead of hitting snooze, he had accidentally turned his alarm off and now he’s overslept. After getting over his initial panic, Jongin throws on the first sweatshirt and pair of jeans he finds on his floor, hoping that even if it’s not clean, that it smells alright. He drags a comb through his hair and curses the day his counselor forced him to sign up for an 8am—he’s not built for early mornings. 

This is unlike him. Of course he likes his sleep, he usually stays in bed and hits snooze for those few extra precious minutes, but he’s never late. Jongin is normally a very punctual person, so he’s not used to running through a deserted campus; he doesn’t stop to think about why there’s no one around, figuring that most everyone has already made it to their class on time.    
  
Jongin arrives only a few minutes after the scheduled class time, quietly pushing open the door so he can head to his seat without disturbing anyone. Yet, when he steps inside, there’s no one there.    
  
Weird, he thought there was supposed to be a quiz today. No, he  _ knows _ there’s supposed to be a quiz today. He had triple checked his calendar and spent all last night studying. Jongin thumps his head against the door and chides himself for not checking his academic email as a final precaution before coming all the way here. Well, at least he’s not late anymore.   
  
“I’m here, I’m here!! Don’t start without me!” a voice calls from down the hallway and Jongin barely has time to register it before there’s a body pushing past him into the empty classroom. Jongin is knocked sideways by the student who, once he reorients himself, he recognizes as none other than Baekhyun Byun. 

Of course. 

“Huh?” Baekhyun skids to a halt inside the empty classroom, “Where is everyone?”

“Obviously class is canceled, dipshit,” Jongin tells him, coming into the classroom behind him and rubbing the spot on his shoulder where Baekhyun had barreled into him. 

“But wasn’t there a quiz on chapter five today?”

Jongin shrugs, hitching his backpack higher on his shoulder “I guess it’s postponed, so I’m going back to sleep.” He doesn’t wait for Baekhyun to say anything, turning on his heel and leaving the classroom as quick as possible. If he gets back to his dorm quick enough, he can get an extra hour of sleep before his next class. 

“Wait,” Baekhyun calls after him, tripping over himself in his haste to catch up with Jongin, “Did you want go get breakfast or something? We can study for the quiz together.”

Jongin just stares at him. Baekhyun should know by now what Jongin’s answer is. But the more he thinks about it, the more he thinks that he could really use another study session and Baekhyun was one of the top students in their class despite his constant tardiness. Baekhyun was smart without putting in the effort and it frustrated Jongin to no end. 

“Do you usually study for these quizzes?”

“No, but I was thinking I should start.” Baekhyun answers, looking a little hopeful. Jongin squints at him, trying to find the trap.

“Fine,” He sighs eventually, “But  _ all _ we’re doing is studying.”

“Really?” Baekhyun sounds surprised, like he didn’t think he’d actually get this far. Jongin is pretty surprised at himself too. He doesn’t usually make it a habit to hang out with Baekhyun.

They weren’t friends—and in Jongin’s eyes they were barely acquaintances. In fact, if Jongin could get through the rest of his college career without ever having to interact with Baekhyun Byun again, he wouldn’t be too upset about it.

But for now he really wants to pass Bio, so he’ll have to make a few sacrifices.

  
  
  
  
  


“So where are we headed?” Baekhyun trails behind Jongin as the latter walks in a brisk pace in front of him. 

“The library.”

“Does this mean we aren’t getting food, then?” Baekhyun asks. He attempts to match Jongin’s pace and is forced to do a silly little jog next to him. 

“Are you going to be annoying about it if we don’t?”

“Probably.” 

“Ugh, fine.” Jongin abruptly changes direction to head towards the dining hall. Baekhyun jogs a little faster to keep up with the sudden change. 

“Where is everyone anyway?” Baekhyun questions from behind him, putting a voice to some of the thoughts Jongin was currently thinking. Campus was completely devoid of anyone at the moment. Baekhyun keeps looking over his shoulder. “Are we being punk’d? Was there some school wide assembly today that I wasn’t aware of?” It was strange but classes were still in session, so Jongin shrugs him off. 

“I’m sure they’re in class like they’re supposed to be,” Jongin huffs. 

“You’re right, if there was an assembly you’d be front row.”

Jongin sighs, because the situation is frustrating enough without another one of Baekhyun’s jabs. He’s beginning to question why he even agreed to this, but eventually just ignores Baekhyun in favor of grumbling a frustrated, “Keep up.” 

They reach the dining hall a few minutes later and, despite the fact that it’s 8:30 in the morning and the cafeteria should have been open for two hours already, the doors are locked. Jongin grabs the handles and gives them a few frustrated tugs and then rounds on Baekhyun. 

“What’s going on?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

It’s fully dawning on Jongin that he hasn’t seen anyone else today—well, anyone else besides Baekhyun—and it’s really rather worrisome. He didn’t see his roommate this morning, but that’s not unusual since his roommate is usually spending the night in his girlfriend’s room, there was no one on campus when he made his mad dash to class but he wrote that off as a product of his tardiness, and now the cafeteria is closed and as he takes a look around him there’s not another soul in sight. 

“Have you seen anyone besides me today?” Jongin asks. He feels like his voice is getting a little panicky. 

“No, but I woke up and came straight here.” Baekhyun replies simply. He puts his face against the glass of the door and peers in. “Huh, there’s no one even in there.”

“That has been established.” There’s no one anywhere from what he can tell. What the fuck is going on?

Baekhyun draws his head back from the window. “What if everyone was raptured in the middle of the night,” he laughs. 

“Baekhyun, that’s not funny.”

“It’s kind of funny.”

“It would only be funny if it’s not true.” Jongin says. It’s looking increasingly like it might be, “And besides there’s no way I wouldn’t be beamed up, too.”

Baekhyun raises an eyebrow at him. 

“What?” Jongin is a good person, he did his work and got good grades. He was a good son to his parents who taught him to be kind and courteous to everyone around him; he even volunteered at the animal shelter on the weekends. If anyone deserved to be beamed up to heaven it was him. He shouldn’t have to stand here and take judgement from Baekhyun Byun. It makes sense why  _ he’s _ still here. 

That is if this is actually the rapture. He doesn’t see any fire or brimstone. Not knowing what else to do, Jongin cups his hands to his mouth, takes a deep breath and shouts. 

“HELLOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

The shout goes unanswered, except for a few birds that fly out of the nearest tree. His voice echoes off the surrounding buildings and disappears into nothingness. Jongin jogs to the next nearest building and tries again. 

“IS ANYBODY OUT THERE!?!”

Still nothing. Jongin doesn’t know what to do or where else to look. 

He feels a rush of panic crawling up his throat and he clamps down on it trying to not let it get the best of him. Baekhyun is still looking at him funny. He takes a few deep breaths to calm down.

“What?” It comes out a bit harsher than he intended but Baekhyun’s mouth just twists into a smirk.

“You know what this means, right?” Baekhyun asks, and Jongin turns to him for an answer even though he’s certain he doesn’t want to hear it. Baekhyun is still smirking at him so Jongin makes a silent gesture for Baekhyun to get on with it. 

“You have to go on that date with me.”

All of the despair and general panic that Jongin had been suppressing until this moment is forgotten in sheer and utter shock. 

“What?” Jongin repeats for the third time in as many minutes. 

“That date you promised.”

“What about it?” There doesn’t seem to be anyone around for miles and Baekhyun is going on about some dumb date Jongin promised when he was half drunk at a party a few months ago. Surely Baekhyun didn’t take that to heart?

“You said you’d go on a date with me if I was the last man on Earth and well...,”  Baekhyun holds his arms out to gesture to the empty campus around them.

“Baekhyun, don’t you think there are other matters a little more important than that right now?” Jongin can’t believe he’s having this conversation. 

“Like what?”

“ Like the fact that everybody fucking disappeared overnight ?!”

“Not you though,” Baekhyun says, pointing between them, “not me.”

“No. No no no. Nononononono this can’t be happening, this canNOT be happening.” Jongin starts pulling at his hair, not really caring that he probably looks like he’s lost it. “There’s gotta be someone else out there.”

“Hey,” Baekhyun looks a bit put out but mostly like he’s having the time of his life, “you promised.”

Jongin does not have the time to debate the stipulations of an agreement he made mostly as a joke. How was he to know that it would actually happen one day? It wasn’t supposed to—that’s kind of the whole reason he said it. He points this little fact out to Baekhyun, but all Baekhyun does is shrug and say, “But it did.”

“We don’t know that,” Jongin says as a last ditch effort. “For all we know there’s other people left out there. It seems kind of impossible that all but 2 of the 7 billion people on Earth disappeared.”

Baekhyun looks doubtful and he pulls out his phone, mumbling something about being lucky that Jongin doesn’t quite catch. Curious, Jongin comes around behind him to see what he’s doing. Was he going to call every number in his contact and wait for an answer? But instead Jongin watches Baekhyun click open the Twitter app and refresh his feed.

“Really, Baekhyun?” Jongin says with an eye roll, “Gotta update your nonexistent followers on the end of the world?”

Baekhyun snorts and starts typing, “Yeah actually, ‘ _ Guess what guys, I finally got a date with Jongin #score’”  _ He reads out the words as he writes them, looking up when he hits send.

“You didn’t get a date with me,” Jongin says, offended. “Delete that.”

“No,” Baekhyun snatches his arm away when Jongin makes a grab for his phone. “According to you no one's gonna see it anyway.”

“But it’s not true, so get rid of it.”

“Ah, but it will be,” Baekhyun sing-songs, “After we go on your wild goose chase and I prove to you there’s no one else left.”

“Who said you’re coming with me?” Jongin barely stops himself from stomping one of his feet. That might be too childish. He settles instead for crossing his arms. “I don’t even know where I’m going.”

“If I don’t go with you, how will I know you aren’t lying? How will I be certain to ever find you again. I say we go to the nearest big city, take a poke around, and when we inevitably find no one there, I’m gonna romance the pants off of you. Not like that,” he adds when Jongin makes a face, “Unless you’re willing.” He finishes with a wiggle of his eyebrows. 

“Ugh,” Jongin says elegantly. 

Reluctantly, he has to admit that Baekhyun is right. Their best bet on finding anyone was probably a city. Plus, being with Baekhyun was maybe, perhaps, possibly  _ marginally  _ better than being totally alone. Marginally.

At the very least, his complete lack of panic or any other sort of anxiety about the situation seemed to be keeping Jongin from having a complete and total meltdown. 

“Fine,” Jongin huffs out, “let me go like, pack some clothes or something.” He has no idea what to do in a situation like this but at least they’re starting somewhere.

“Good idea, I’ll meet you back here in 20!” Baekhyun says before speeding off.

For a moment, Jongin watches the way Baekhyun’s fluffy hair bounces as he runs, and then turns around and heads in the direction of his own dorm. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Do you have a car?” 

“No. Do you?”

“Nope.” 

‘Well, we’ll just...take one then?” 

They’re standing at the edge of the campus parking lot. It’s not full by any means, mostly just the ones belonging to the staff and a few very early rising commuters.

“That’s stealing, though.” Jongin doesn’t feel right about just taking one. 

Baekhyun, however, is waltzing up to the nearest car and jiggling the handle. 

“Is it stealing if there’s no one here to actually claim ownership?” He’s already moved on, peering into the window of the next car over. Jongin shrugs, still feeling uneasy but inspecting the cars in the row opposite of Baekhyun. He whips his head around when he hears a gasp.

Baekhyun is about halfway down the line of cars, waving Jongin over excitedly. As soon as he’s gotten Jongin’s attention, he disappears into the driver’s seat. 

“The door was open and everything,” he says when Jongin finally gets in the passenger seat. “They must have been getting out right when—you know.”

When they disappeared he means. As much as Jongin was trying not to dwell on it, he couldn’t help the questions that had been rolling through his mind for the past hour. Where did everyone go? Why was he left behind? Why was  _ Baekhyun _ left behind? When he had gotten back to his room he allowed himself 5 minutes of panic where he’s not ashamed to admit that he cried a little bit after he tried calling his parents, his sister, his best friend. There was no answer to each and it was really starting to sink in that they were well and truly alone. It was strange to think that one minute they were going about their business and then in the next...

Maybe this was his own personal hell—the speculation strengthened by the fact that Baekhyun breaks through his troubled thoughts and says, “So I was thinking about Chicago for our romantic getaway.” All while he’s batting his eyes and making kissy faces. 

Jongin nearly gets out of the car. He has the door open and one leg out, but Baekhyun leans across him and yanks it shut before Jongin can actually leave.

“I should have known you wouldn’t be able to take a joke.”

Baekhyun returns to his own seat and starts the car while Jongin just huffs and crosses his arms. 

“Chicago sounds fine.” It comes out as more of a childish grumble than anything, but it has Baekhyun brightening as he puts the car in gear.

“Good, cause I actually know how to get there.”

He pulls out of the parking lot, laughing at himself when he puts his turn signal on out of habit. And Jongin is surprised that Baekhyun would be such a careful driver. 

The thought, however, turns out to be a bit premature, because as soon as they reach the long stretch of road that will take them off campus, Baekhyun turns to Jongin and says, "Guess what?"

Jongin doesn't want to guess, and he doesn't have to when not even a second later, Baekhyun floors it yelling, "No speed limit!"

Jongin is jerked backwards in his seat and has to grab onto the handle above him for support.

"Jesus Christ, can you slow down?"

Baekhyun does nothing but cackle gleefully beside him.

"No really, Baekhyun slow down." They're coming up at the intersection and Jongin can see a few cars stuck in the intersection. He's not sure he trusts Baekhyun to not hit any of them.

"Relax, it's not like I'm going to get pulled over."

Jongin scoffs and wishes Baekhyun would use his brain once in a while. He points out the row of cars in front of them and Baekhyun rolls his eyes, but he finally slows down.

"I wasn't going to hit them."

They’re pulling up to the intersection now and Baekhyun slows to a stop, actually turning the car off and getting out to inspect the scene. Some of the cars are still idling, waiting for their absent drivers to return, others have collided with the car in front of them. There's one that's crushed in the light post up ahead. Jongin follows behind Baekhyun.

Just as expected, each of the cars are empty and there's no signs of anyone around.

"This is weird." Baekhyun whispers almost to himself. Jongin isn't sure if he was supposed to hear it. But he agrees. It's pretty unsettling.

"Uh, can we go?" He doesn't like this one bit.

Baekhyun nods, clearly thinking the same thing.

He pulls away slowly to avoid the mess on the road. This time, Jongin doesn’t have to tell him to drive at a normal speed. Occasionally, they’ll pass another spectacle just like the first with varying damages, depending on how fast the drivers were going when they disappeared. All with the same forlorn emptiness and disconcerting atmosphere.

  
  
  
  
  


Baekhyun hasn’t said a word to Jongin in 45 minutes—which he honestly thinks is a new record. Not that Jongin makes a regular habit of being within range of Baekhyun’s vocal box. If he is, more often than not he regrets it. The atmosphere in the car isn’t awkward exactly, but they were both still a little rattled from the earlier scene, and there’s not even any music to settle in the silence. 

About half an hour in, Jongin had started fiddling with the radio and still the most he’s caught was a few bursts of static and fuzz. Though nothing was more eerie than most stations being completely silent. 

“How long do you think the power will last?” Jongin asks once he’s gone through each station on both AM and FM twice. He remembers watching a documentary once about what would happen if people just disappeared one day but he wasn’t taking notes in case it actually happened. He figures they have a few days at most.

“Dunno,” Baekhyun shrugs, he tries to keep it casual, but he looks still a bit surprised that Jongin is willingly addressing him at all. “The Internet was working earlier but who knows how long that will last.”

“Maybe we should stop at a library for a few survival books,” Jongin quips. “Kick it old school.”

Baekhyun huffs a laugh through his nose and Jongin flicks through a few more radio stations as they devolve back into silence.

“That’s why I was checking Twitter, by the way.” 

The few moments of silence made Jongin believe that the conversation was over, so he’s a bit confused as to what Baekhyun is referring to.

“Huh?”

“Earlier,” Baekhyun explains, turning to Jongin with a wry grin, “when I sent that tweet. I was checking to see if the Internet was working. Like if there was, I don’t know, some sort of explanation on what was happening? If anyone was still out there… But the last things I saw were from like 6am.”

“Oh.”

It makes sense in a weird way. Now Jongin feels kind of bad for being rude about it. 

“I can delete that tweet if it really bothers you.” Jongin turns to find a rare display of earnestness in Baekhyun’s expression. It catches him off guard.

“No, uh,” Jongin gulps, “It’s—”

“Oh my fucking God.”

Jongin watches the transformation take place on Baekhyun’s face as he spots something in the distance, eyes wide. Startled, Jongin follows his line of vision and immediately spots the cause of Baekhyun’s outburst.

“Do you think anyone’s on it?” He whispers, but Baekhyun is already pulling a fast U-Turn, barely slowing down, the force of it slamming Jongin into the side of the car. 

The plane is already low—too low. And flying straight towards them until Baekhyun had flipped them around. Jongin spins in his seat to keep an eye on it. 

“Which way is it going?” Baekhyun asks. He cranes his neck for a look but is forced to look back at the road after a few seconds. 

“Um,” Jongin tries to gauge the direction it will land, “Turn left as soon as you can.” Almost immediately, he’s thrown back into the side of the car. “Right, right!”

The plane is getting closer and will soon overtake them. Baekhyun presses down harder on the gas. They drive like that for a few minutes, Jongin shouting directions to Baekhyun so they can get as close as they can to where it’ll eventually go down. The roar of the engine is deafening, even when it passes them about 5 miles due East. 

Baekhyun stops the car and together they watch the plane disappear behind the few surrounding houses in burst of flame.

“Should we?” Baekhyun asks when a plume of smoke rises over the houses. The question is loud in the sudden silence and Jongin can’t bring himself to answer, only nodding jerkily. 

He doesn’t know how long they sit there for, or even when Baekhyun starts driving again, but sometime later he finds himself standing in front of the decimated hull of a Boeing 747, coughing when the thick smoke reaches his lungs. 

There’s nothing there. 

Debris? Yes. A few hundred bags of luggage scattered about the scene and an overturned drink cart that somehow made its way near the wing? There’s definitely that, but in Jongin’s eyes that’s nothing. No one. No screams for help or scared survivors. Not a body in the cockpit or a soul onboard. Only the crackle of the blazing fire amongst the burning wreckage. 

He’s not sure what they would have done  _ had _ there been anyone. Jongin feels strangely relieved. Baekhyun emits a low whistle.

“This is  _ fucked _ .”

The hysterical half-sob that Jongin laughs out serves as an agreement.

  
  
  


 

“Why are you always studying?”

Jongin jolts, making Baekhyun cackle behind him, as he comes around from the back of Jongin’s chair to sit opposite him. Jongin takes a few moments to organize all of his studying materials that he has laid out in front of him while he tries calming down the erratic beating of his heart. Baekhyun came out of nowhere. 

“Do you always greet strangers like this?” Jongin asks. His heart rate is back to normal and he takes to glaring at the boy in front of him. 

“You’re not a stranger though,” Baekhyun grins.

“We’ve met, like, twice.” Neither of them were particularly good experiences. Baekhyun was the campus player. An sleazeball in Jongin’s eyes and somehow everyone else’s darling angel. He never could figure out why. “I wouldn’t call that friendship.”

Baekhyun frowns, “That’s because you’re uptight.”

“If you came here just to insult me, then you’ve done your job. You can leave now.” He wonders vaguely how Baekhyun even knows his study habits as he takes in the other’s own lack of backpack or textbooks. Maybe he  _ did _ come here to insult him. 

“Nah, I saw you from the window and thought I’d come say hi,” Baekhyun shrugs, “You seem to be here a lot so I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.”

“Figures you’ve never come to the library before,” Jongin bites back. It pulls a surprised chuckle out of Baekhyun.

“Oh, I’ve been here before,” he responds, eyes twinkling, “But it’s just so hard being quiet.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“And like I said, you’re uptight.” Baekhyun laughs again when he dodges the pen aimed for his head.

They sit in silence for a few minutes. Jongin came here to work and he won’t let Baekhyun dirsrupt that. He can feel the other’s eyes on him though, and he kind of wishes that he would go away already. Jongin knows he’s got plenty of actual friends he can bother. 

“Go on a date with me,” Baekhyun says suddenly, breaking their silence. 

“Pardon?” Jongin isn’t sure he heard that correctly.

“A date.” Baekhyun repeats, “With me.”

Unfortunately, it seems that Jongin’s ears are in perfect working condition. He has to stop himself from laughing in Baekhyun’s face.

“You just insulted me, what makes you think I’d say yes?”

“My devilish good looks, obviously.”

“It’s too bad about your personality then,” Jongin retorts in an attempt to wipe the smile off of Baekhyun’s face. Even then it only makes Baekhyun laugh again.

“You’re a tough one to crack, Jongin.” Baekhyun says, leaning back in his chair and appraising him. “But I will one day.”

“You wish.” 

He’s uncomfortable under Baekhyun’s gaze, who is looking at him like a piece of meat and speaking about him as though he’s just some conquest. It makes him feel awkward and exposed. He starts gathering up his things—he’ll just finish studying in the dorm.

“If you don’t mind,” Jongin says, standing up now that he’s packed everything up, “I actually care about my grades and I need to finish this review.” He gives Baekhyun one last scathing look and leaves without a goodbye.

  
  
  
  


 

 

Jongin wakes up with the sun in his eyes, squinting to take in his surroundings. Yesterday they had called it a day after the plane crash, too overwhelmed to continue on and they had stopped at the nearest place with open doors. His head is pillowed on a few balled-up sweaters and the shelf of chips across from him tells him he’s definitely still in the convenience store they had stopped in last night; which means all of this was real and not some terrible dream.  

Well, if life as they knew it was over, Jongin was going to sleep in. He closes his eyes, intending to go unconscious for at least another three hours, but as he lies there in silence he becomes aware of an incessant scratching noise coming from somewhere in the store. Jongin lies there angrily a few more minutes with his eyes closed, a poor attempt to fall back asleep, when he realizes that it’s futile. 

Grumbling, he gets up, intending to find the source of the noise. He doesn’t even have to go far since almost immediately he finds Baekhyun tucked behind the counter and surrounded by rolls of scratch off lottery tickets. He’s wearing an obnoxious pair of sunglasses from the rack by the door as well as a green visor that says ILLINOIS across the front in an ugly font. There’s a half eaten twizzler dangling from his mouth and as Jongin watches, Baekhyun finishes one card and tosses it aside, already moving onto the next one. He looks like an old lady at a casino.

“You sleep like the dead,” Baekhyun says, not looking up from his new ticket. It startles Jongin who thought Baekhyun hadn’t seen him yet and he shrugs, stifling a yawn.

“I’ve been told.”

He watches Baekhyun scratch away in silence for a few more minutes trying not to show his amusement when Baekhyun presumably wins something on one of them and waves the ticket around in a display of victory. When he’s done he adds the card to a special pile and takes a bite of his twizzler.

“What…….are you doing?” Jongin asks after just watching in silence for a bit. While it’s obvious that Baekhyun is scratching lottery tickets, Jongin wants to know  _ why. _

”I’m winning the lottery,” Baekhyun answers. He pauses to take another bite of his twizzler. “Want to join? I’ve already won about $2,000.”

Baekhyun rips off a long line of tickets and offers it to Jongin. Jongin takes it but makes no move to join him. 

Baekhyun seems to notice his hesitation, asking, “What’s wrong?” 

“I’ve never done one of these before,” Jongin muses. The twizzler drops from Baekhyun’s mouth in surprise. 

“What? Oh my god, how?” 

Jongin shrugs, “Gambling is a bad habit.”

This simple statement causes Baekhyun to snort with laughter. “Yeah if you do it every day,” he says, “one scratchy lottery every few weeks isn’t going to send you to rehab.” 

Jongin must still look hesitant because Baekhyun grabs his wrist and pulls him down.

“C’mon we’ll play a game. First one to $1,000 wins.”

“And what do they win?”

“A date.”

Jongin opens his mouth to protest but before he can Baekhyun stops him.

“You’re right, you already owe me one of those.” He taps his chin contemplatively. “How about a kiss on said date?”

“I’m not playing anymore.”

“Ugh, fine.” Baekhyun grabs Jongin’s wrist again to stop him from getting up and leaving. “If you want to be boring we can just play for fun.”

Jongin thinks about saying no. He wants to. He doesn’t want to sit here and play games with Baekhyun when he could be out searching for other people. Yet somehow he finds himself saying yes and twenty minutes later he’s yelling at Baekhyun for a rematch.

They play until they exhaust the ticket supply and Baekhyun is up 10 grand. Even if Baekhyun’s smug winning face makes him look so punchable, Jongin hates to admit that this was kind of fun. And since Jongin is a sore loser, he doesn’t eve n let Baekhyun revel in his win before ushering them out of the store and back on the road. 

  
  
  
  
  


The sight of crashed cars and cars that just rolled to a stop in the middle of the street gets no less eerie as they continue on. The pair decides it’s easier if they just ignore them as they drive around; they still haven’t discussed the plane crash. 

But today was a new day, and Jongin’s hope has returned with new vigor—he’s determined to find someone else. Just as it seems that Baekhyun is determined to get them lost. 

“I thought you said you knew how to get there.” 

Jongin is leaning against the bin of vacation pamphlets while Baekhyun analyzes a map on the wall. They had pulled into a rest stop not too long ago and Jongin had just assumed it was because Baekhyun needed to pee. Now, he realizes, Baekhyun had been driving them in circles for the past few hours.

“You see,” Baekhyun says, flipping his head sideways and squinting a little, “GPS is a very useful tool and maybe I underestimated my reliance on it.”

“Unbelievable.”

Baekhyun laughs. “Whatever, I’m just gonna follow the road signs and figure it out from there.” He pats Jongin on the cheek. “We’ll get there eventually.”

_ Eventually.  _ Jongin watches him stroll past him in disbelief. From past experience, he knows that their school couldn’t be more than a five hour drive from Chicago. They should be there by now. Quickly he picks a map from the bin and follows behind. 

“This wasn’t supposed to be a road trip.” He says, settling into the passenger seat and opening the map. 

“Maybe it should be—Hey, let’s drive through all the small towns on the way and shout. If anyone is there we’ll find them.”

“Can you just drive?”

“Sheesh, fine.” Baekhyun starts the engine and pulls back out onto the road while Jongin goes back to his map; trying to figure out where the hell they are and how much farther they need to go. If Baekhyun wasn’t going to take this seriously, then he would.

They’re barely on the road for five minutes when Baekhyun slows down again. Jongin finally gives up on the map and tosses it aside to glare at Baekhyun. Baekhyun bites his lip and glances sideways at Jongin.

“Fancy a walk?"

Jongin’s eyes move from the dumb grin on Baekhyun’s face to the gas gauge on the dashboard pointing to E. He closes his eyes and sighs deeply.

“Why does it feel like you’re doing this on purpose?”

Baekhyun laughs at him, already climbing out of the car. “Stop being so dramatic.” He pokes his head in the back door, grabbing his backpack and adding, “we’re just gonna have to find a new car that’s all.”

Reluctantly, Jongin follows behind, annoyed that Baekhyun seems to be enjoying this so much. He appreciates the fact that at least they aren’t in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t take long for them to reach the next town. 

They search the first few cars they find without luck, but Jongin didn’t expect to find another car with the key already in the engine, ready and waiting. Baekhyun seems to have been looking for a different criteria entirely, because when he finally says a cheery, “Perfect!” after inspecting an old sedan, Jongin doesn’t see an open door or key of any kind. He wonders what is so exciting about it.

“How do we get in?” Jongin asks, jiggling on the locked door handle. Baekhyun is already pulling out something from his backpack. 

“I thought I might have to do this,” he brandishes a wire coat hanger and thrusts his backpack into Jongin’s empty arms, “hold this.”

Jongin watches in astonishment as Baekhyun flattens out the hanger, inserting it in the space where the window meets the metal door and shimmying it. After a few minutes there’s a click and Baekhyun opens the door. 

“We still don’t have a key though,” Jongin points out, like Baekhyun didn’t just exhibit expert lock picking abilities.

Baekhyun waves him off, “We don’t need one.”

For a moment, Jongin is confused. That is until Baekhyun leans down under the steering wheel and with practiced movements, he rips up the floor and does some fiddling with wire.

“You’re going to hotwire it?”

Baekhyun looks briefly up at him and nods. 

“Are you okay with that, Jonginnie? I keep forgetting what a goody two shoes you are.”

He mutters the last part, but Jongin still hears it, sneering at the insult.

“Don’t call me Jonginnie.” Jongin crosses his arms and leans against the car. Baekhyun rolls his eyes, back to focusing on connecting the wires.

“I’m not even surprised you know how to do that."

“Why?” Baekhyun asks as the engine roars to life. “You think I’m some sort of delinquent?” He laughs, adjusting the wires so they’re out of the way. 

“Uh, kinda?” Jongin says, pushing off from the car. Baekhyun gets in the driver’s seat. “I mean you never take class seriously— or anything for that matter. And now apparently you can pick locks and hotwire cars?” Jongin walks around and gets in the passenger side. “What am I supposed to think?”

Baekhyun slams the door, laughter gone from his expression. Jongin gulps.

“For your information, my father is a mechanic and he taught me these things. I don’t go around stealing cars. And just because I crack jokes in class doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

Jongin glances at Baekhyun briefly before looking away and avoiding eye contact. He wishes he could take back the thing he said about Baekhyun never being serious, because his current expression is as humorless as he’s ever seen him.

“Sorry,” Jongin whispers, “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well— you never really bothered to learn.” Baekhyun points out and he doesn’t sound mad exactly, but Jongin still feels guilty. Baekhyun pulls off and Jongin sinks down in his seat, settling for staring out the window. 

They drive in silence for a bit. Baekhyun avoids the occasional crashed car like a pro now that they’re becoming more commonplace in the more densely populated suburbs. Jongin watches as the clouds overhead begin darkening with the threat of rain. Baekhyun keeps glancing upwards warily. 

“Why are you okay with being last choice?” Jongin blurts after a while. The question had been nagging at him ever since they had passed a billboard for a dating website and it got him to thinking. He figures now is as good a time as any to finally ask. 

Baekhyun chuckles softly, the tension from earlier leaking out as he does so. Jongin relaxes too. 

“Well,” he laughs, “whatever would get you to notice me.”

It’s an interesting answer. It’s kind of hard not to now— but Baekhyun wasn’t invisible to Jongin before so he’s not sure he quite understands. Baekhyun was the kind of person to make himself known. He has a hundred responses running through his mind, but eventually he settles on, “I just don’t see why me.”

Drizzle bespatters the windshield and Baekhyun flicks on the wipers. 

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I— well, you know.” Baekhyun looks at him expectantly, “You could have gotten anyone.”

Baekhyun sighs and shakes his head, “I guess ‘has feelings’ was also on the list of things you didn’t know about me.”

Jongin looks at Baekhyun long and hard, trying to gauge the truth of his statement. Baekhyun stares straight ahead and gives nothing away. Eventually, Jongin gives up, sitting back in his seat and wondering why that makes him feel warm.

He doesn’t get to dwell on it long— the rain picks up and Baekhyun asks him if he’s alright stopping for a bit. He’s uncomfortable driving when it’s so dark and slick. With the added obstacles on the road, Jongin doesn’t blame him. He lets Baekhyun pull into a suburb and choose a house to stay in for the night. 

  
  
  
  
  


Rain pounds at the window and Jongin curls up with a book he had randomly picked off the shelf in the house they had settled on. Baekhyun had immediately raided the kitchen when they arrived, and is now sat in front of the fireplace with a package of goldfish, flipping through the family photo albums that the house’s owner kept in a neat stack nearby. 

“How is that fun for you?” Jongin asks when he looks up from his novel to see Baekhyun cooing over the album titled DISNEY WORLD 2001, “Those are random people’s kids.”

“All babies are cute, Jongin.” Baekhyun replies. He holds out the album for Jongin to see. “Look at the way this little girl is looking at Cinderella— it’s like she’s meeting her hero.”

Jongin raises his eyebrow, he still doesn’t get the appeal. Baekhyun snatches back the album like he’s been personally insulted. 

“Whatever, go back to your lame book, I still have five more albums of Disney to get through.”

Jongin laughs and does what he’s told. 

Early evening rolls around and the rain is still falling in steady sheets so they make the decision to stay overnight. And on top of that the power isn’t working, so they scrounge up some food that doesn’t require cooking and eat a weird mishmash dinner. Afterwards, Jongin finds their stash of board games and beats Baekhyun handily at Monopoly, who had played despite calling board games a pastime for boring old people. Jongin smacked him and told him he loved board games making Baekhyun raised his eyebrows like that only proved his point. 

Not long after they head to bed.

 

  
  
  
  


Overnight the rain has gotten worse, forcing them to stay an extra night. They pass the next day in much the same manner as the first. The whole scene is distressingly domestic. Jongin reads on the couch and this time Baekhyun is reading too—only it’s the diary of the teenage girl who used to live here. 

“You’re shameless,” Jongin tells him when Baekhyun cracks up so hard at a passage about the girl’s crush that he decided Jongin needed to hear it too.

“Oh come on. It’s not like she’s here anymore.”

“I know. It still feels wrong.” Baekhyun didn’t mean for it to be a depressing reminder but it still hit hard, “Like any second this family is gonna come home and call the cops on us for breaking and entering.”

Baekhyun sighs and sets aside the diary. “Maybe it’s time to stop thinking like that.”

Jongin wonders how Baekhyun has kept such a positive attitude throughout this whole ordeal. “It’s hard.”

Outside, the thunder rumbles so loud the house shakes. Jongin nearly jumps out of his skin. He can see Baekhyun gearing up to say something about it so he quickly turns the tables. 

“I know it’s only been a couple of days but don’t you miss them? Your friends? Family?”

Baekhyun stares at Jongin for a moment like he wants to say something else, but sighs, laying back down on the couch. 

“I don’t know if it’s really sunk in yet but, yeah.” He blinks up at the ceiling. “I kind of regret my last conversation with Chanyeol.”

“Why?”

“I called him a dumbass.”

Jongin laughs—he tells Baekhyun that he calls Sehun a dumbass all the time. It’s just what best friends do.

“Yeah but this wasn’t exactly in the best friend way.” His eyes are shiny, and his blinking comes much faster. With a tug of sympathy, Jongin realizes that he’s trying not to cry. “I really meant it.”

Jongin averts his eyes and pretends that he doesn’t see Baekhyun discreetly wiping his tears.

For too long, Jongin had pigeon-holed Baekhyun as an unfeeling goofball who didn’t care about anyone except himself. It was strange to see him not play his emotions off as a joke for once. For the past few days, Baekhyun had been so good at distracting Jongin— keeping things purposefully light so they didn’t succumb to the hopelessness. And Jongin feels terrible for even being shocked that Baekhyun seems to be taking it just as hard. 

“What did he do?” Jongin whispers.

“Fucked things up with Sehun.”

Jongin smiles sadly. He had been on the other side of this conversation many times. He knew what Baekhyun was feeling. It’s not like Sehun didn’t do the same thing plenty of times himself. Their on again off again relationship had caused Jongin grief for months. 

“I just wish I told him I loved him” Baekhyun’s whisper is nearly drowned out by the rain. “I didn’t do it enough.”

Thunder rumbles again and Jongin squeezes his eyes shut, clutching onto the couch until it passes. When he opens his eyes, Baekhyun is staring at him with concern.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly, “ Just tired. I think I’m going to head to bed.”

Baekhyun nods, not looking entirely convinced, but he lets Jongin go anyway.

 

  
  
  
  


When Jongin was younger, his sister used to read him stories and distract him with cuddles whenever there was a bad thunderstorm. Even when Jongin didn’t grow out of his fear and he got too old for bedtime stories, she never complained when he came to her. Her presence was enough to calm him down. 

Now, Jongin lies in bed and tries not to think about how he’ll never see her again. Baekhyun was right— he needed to accept that this was their new reality. Thinking of earlier, he’s not sure why he needed to get out of there so quickly. Part of him thinks it’s because he didn’t want Baekhyun to make fun of him for being a scared baby, but the other part thinks about Baekhyun wiping his tears and crying about his best friend. It was overwhelming.

Another clap of thunder booms, and Jongin’s anxiety gets worse. There’s only so much hiding under the covers can do. Somehow, he finds himself standing outside of Baekhyun’s door debating on what he’s about to do. God, this is embarrassing.

He fights with himself for a few more seconds until he finally gathers the courage to knock.

“Whozzare?” 

Baekhyun stares blearily at the door, his hair sticking in all different directions. Jongin pokes his head into the room.

“Jonginnie?”

“Can I uh—Can I sleep...in..here…?”

Baekhyun blinks, still too sleepy to really process what he’s being asked. “Sure,” he rubs his eyes, “What’s wrong?”

Jongin’s about to tell him that he’s not good with loud noises when another thunderclap reverberates through the house and Jongin can’t help the embarrassing whimper that escapes him. 

Baekhyun pats the bed, motioning for Jongin to join him. Jongin shakes his head and spreads his blanket out on the ground next to the bed.

“I’m gonna take the floor.”

“Mmkay,” Jongin can tell that he’s mostly back to being asleep.

He’s already a bit calmer, but that doesn’t stop him from burrowing a bit deeper under his blanket when a bolt of lightning cracks across the sky and illuminates the window. 

A tuft of fluffy hair peeks over the side of the bed. 

“Just come up here,” Baekhyun sighs sleepily. “I’m not going to do anything.”

Finally Jongin relents. He feels kind of silly now, but Baekhyun hadn’t made fun of him for being scared of thunder like he thought he would.

Jongin lies in the darkness, thoughts of friends and family still plaguing his mind. He still can’t sleep. “Do you think Sehun and Chanyeol would have figured it out?” 

He turns to the lump that his Baekhyun next to him. His breathing is even so Jongin figures that he’s asleep. He’s surprised when he gets an answer.

“I think so,” Baekhyun yawns, rolling over and looking Jongin in the eyes. “They were good together when they both weren’t being dumbasses.”

Jongin holds eye contacts for a few moments, facing the ceiling again when it gets to be too much. It feels like a lot more is being left unsaid.

“I think you’re right,” he whispers. Baekhyun has already fallen back asleep.

  
  
  
  
  


The walk from the library to his dorm is always a peaceful one. Jongin likes the way campus looks at night, a few students here and there but ultimately it’s quite tranquil— a nice contrast to the chaos of the day. It’s late on a Thursday night and Jongin has just finished studying for a test he has tomorrow and finally feels prepared enough to leave the library and go to sleep.

When he gets back to his dorm, he doesn’t want to rudely awaken his roommate, so he quietly opens the door and squints into the darkness. He doesn’t see his outline on the bed, so he figures his roommate must still be out. Jongin turns on the light. He lets out an unmanly shriek when he sees that the room isn’t actually empty. There’s a stranger sleeping in his bed.  

The boy stirs a little at the sound, but doesn’t wake. There’s a bit of drool down the side of his mouth. 

“Um—” 

Jongin doesn’t know what to do with the intruder on his bed. He doesn’t look dangerous, but then again weren’t most serial killers handsome and charming?

But Jongin has had a long day of studying and he just wants to sleep. He leans forward and yanks the covers off the stranger, startling him awake. 

“Care to explain who you are and why you’re in my bed?”

The stranger just yawns and rubs his temples, giggling a little. 

“Whyreyouyelling?” 

Is he drunk? Who is this guy? Jongin leans forward and sniffs. There’s no mistaking the strong scent of alcohol that the boy reeks. Yep, definitely drunk.  

“You’re not Yixing,” the boy says.

Obviously. His roommate was clearly still not here. 

“I’m not.”

“Who are you then? You’re cute.”

“I’m tired. Let me go to sleep.”

“Hi tired, I’m Baekhyun.” 

Again, Baekhyun giggles, amusing himself with his own joke. But Jongin isn’t finding this particular situation very funny. 

“How did you even get in here.”

“Yixing called me. Said his roommate was gone and we could have a little fun. But now  _ he’s  _ gone and you’re here. I think I maybe drank too much.”

The last part is obvious, but Baekhyun’s rambling doesn’t really do much to clarify the rest of the situation. Jongin’s patience is starting to wear thin, at this point he just wants Baekhyun gone.

“Hey, you’re hot.”

“Please get out of my bed.”

He will definitely be speaking to Yixing about who they allow in their room in the future.

“Okay fine, but you gotta tell me your name.”

He’s too tired for games so he doesn’t think it’ll hurt to be honest. 

“Jongin,” he says. He’s planning on never seeing this guy ever again anyway. 

“Well Jongin,” Baekhyun sits up in his best drunk attempt at being sultry, “it’s—” Baekhyun clamps his mouth down and immediately stops talking. Oh no. Jongin knows what’s coming before it happens and there’s nothing he can do about it. The most he has time to do is take a step backwards as Baekhyun leans forward and hurls. 

Then, without so much as a word, Baekhyun flops face forward, instantly falling back asleep.

  
  
  
  
  


Waking up to this sleeping Baekhyun was a lot more pleasant than the first time they met. There’s still a bit of drool on the corner of his mouth, but at least Jongin doesn’t have to deal with a pile of sick at his feet. He’s not sure Baekhyun had never apologized for that particular incident, moving straight to hitting on Jongin and acting like he hadn’t waltzed in his life to make everything difficult for him. 

Jongin watches Baekhyun sigh and smack his lips in his sleep, shutting his eyes quickly in case the latter was to wake up and catch him staring. It was hard reconciling the Baekhyun he knows now with the Baekhyun that he thought he hated just a few days ago. He seemed different somehow—a little softer and kinder—but maybe it was just Jongin’s perspective that shifted once he actually got to know him. 

Outside, the thunderstorm had quieted to a light drizzle and Jongin falls back asleep for a few hours. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


By the time Jongin wakes up a few hours later, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out.  They’re finally able to continue on their way. Baekhyun is beyond pleased to find the keys to a Lexus hanging on a hook near the garage door, and so they leave their old sedan in the driveway and drive the remaining 50 or so miles to the city in style. 

The Chicago skyline is beautiful. The buildings stand proud against the clear sky and the anticipation is making Jongin jittery. He so badly wants to find someone else. The date with Baekhyun didn’t seem like much of a bother anymore, really. What weighed heavily on Jongin’s mind was the fact that they might never find anyone else. It was terrifying. 

As they get closer to the Loop, the highway gets gradually fuller and fuller until they’re forced to walk the rest of the way in. The world ending during rush hour didn’t do them any favors. Jongin laughs at Baekhyun’s pouting face when he realizes that this means he must leave the Lexus behind. He says a short, dramatic goodbye before they begin their trek. 

“This is like, the weirdest hike ever,” Baekhyun exclaims, crawling over a group of cars that had ended up lumped together— no time to crash when traffic was bumper to bumper. Jongin had favored walking on the shoulder. He only has to dodge the occasional car that had swerved lanes. 

Chicago looms before them, tall and silent. Jongin had visited once when he was younger, when it was teeming with people and his father had to keep urging him to walk faster and stop looking up lest he get swept away in the current. This was going to be a very different experience.

“You’re going to hurt yourself.”

The cars are still a bit slick from yesterday’s rain and Jongin has a feeling that something bad is going to happen. However, his warning falls on deaf ears. Jongin rolls his eyes, watching Baekhyun hop to the next car and land with a thunk.

“Don’t come crying to me when you break your neck,” he calls again, but Baekhyun just waves him off. 

“Oh, please. I’m invincible, Jonginnie.”

Famous last words. Jongin shakes his head with a disbelieving laugh. The gap between the next two cars is about three feet. It makes Jongin uneasy, but Baekhyun is already jumping. 

Everything happens so quickly. Baekhyun’s feet hit the edge of the car and for a second Jongin thinks that he’s made it. But Baekhyun’s shout of victory quickly turns to distress when his foot catches on a puddle as he tries to stand and he tumbles off the side, landing hard and out of Jongin’s view completely. Jongin feels his heart stop. 

“Baekhyun!” 

Without a second thought, Jongin scrambles over the few cars in between them. He finds Baekhyun already sitting up against the back tire holding his right arm. There’s a pretty decent amount of blood dripping from just below his elbow. He looks up at Jongin guiltily.

“Ow.”

“You fucking idiot. I told you to be careful.”

Jongin digs through his bag until he finds his bottle of hydrogen peroxide and some gauze that he had taken from the house in the suburbs. As soon as he finds it, he grabs Baekhyun’s arm and gets to work. 

Baekhyun says nothing—only a brief hiss when Jongin nearly dumps the whole bottle over the wound—silently allowing Jongin to fix him up. 

“There,” Jongin says when he’s finished, checking one last time that the gauze is in place. “Now get up and walk on the ground like a normal person.”

Baekhyun, however, doesn’t move.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing.” Baekhyun’s obnoxious smirk definitely means there’s something. Jongin waits for him to continue, “It’s just that, it almost seemed like you cared about me for a second there.”

Oh god.

“I don’t,” Jongin denies, rather too quickly. Baekhyun’s smirk gets more pronounced. 

“You were fretting over me. You even dressed my wound.”

“T-that’s because,” Jongin hopes his face isn’t as red as it feels, “because I don’t want you to get blood poisoning and die. Then I’d really be alone. I was not  _ fretting _ .”

“Are you saying that you’d miss me?”

Jongin was hoping that Baekhyun wouldn’t comment on the fact that his words gave the impression that he was giving up on finding anyone else (he’s not, dammit). Somehow this is worse. 

“No.”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay,” Baekhyun is still smiling, but the smirk has been replaced with something more genuine. His voice, too, has gone a little softer and the change makes Jongin to look back at him, “I’ll be more careful.”

  
  
  
  
  


“I don’t know why you hate Baekhyun so much.” Sehun is currently holding his slice of pizza over his head and funneling the hanging bits of cheese directly into his mouth. 

It’s the Friday after midterms and the first time Jongin has hung out with Sehun properly in over a week, too absorbed with his studying to give anything but his textbooks the time of day. Both of them were too burnt out to do anything else tonight besides order a pizza and try not to pass out before ten. 

Jongin snorts and takes his own huge bite, answering around a mouthful of cheese.

“He’s a sleazeball.”

Sehun chews contemplatively, “He doesn’t seem like that once you get to know him though. You know what I think?”

“Hmm?”

“I think he just has a crush on you and doesn’t know how to express it.”

Jongin chokes. A crush? He hasn’t seen Baekhyun with the same fling more than once in the entire time that he’s known him. Baekhyun with actual romantic feelings? It’s just not realistic.

“Why would I want to get to know him though, he—Oh Sehun!” Jongin narrows his eyes, the guilty look Sehun is sporting tells him that his best friend has ulterior motives for this conversation. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing, forget it.”

Jongin sets down his plate and squeezes the back of Sehun’s neck.

“Is this about your thing with Chanyeol?”

“No.”

Jongin squeezes harder. Sehun scrunches his shoulders and tries to bat Jongin off. 

“Okay, fine!” He finally succeeds in pushing Jongin off and Jongin lets him, satisfied that he made Sehun break, “I like him and Baekhyun is his best friend. I thought it would be nice if you could, I don’t know, tolerate each other?”

_ Fat chance  _ Jongin thinks, but he doesn’t want to be rude when Sehun is looking at him so hopefully. 

“I’ll think about it.”

Sehun’s answering smile is angelic, and Jongin is glad to see his best friend so happy. But Sehun has to ruin it by opening his mouth one more time.

“Maybe then you can fuck and spare us all the weird tension.”

Jongin throws his pepperoni at Sehun’s face.

  
  
  
  
  


It takes about half an hour more to get to the heart of the city. Jongin had been avoiding eye contact with Baekhyun the whole time. 

Of course there was no deeper meaning to patching Baekhyun’s wound. Why would there be? If they truly were the last men on Earth and something happened to Baekhyun—well Jongin doesn’t want to admit that he’s become attached to Baekhyun, but he’s used to his presence. 

Having Baekhyun around was better than being alone forever. That’s it.

Jongin shivers as the wind whips between the buildings and ruffles his hair. Empty coffee cups and scattered litter blow through the streets like tumbleweeds. This is almost worse than the suburbs; cities weren’t meant to be empty. 

Jongin hikes his backpack higher and hugs his arms close to try and gain a little warmth. He’s not sure how to go about looking for other people now that they’re actually here. It seems like Baekhyun is going through a similar thought process. 

“Should I try the shouting thing?”

He waits for Jongin’s confirmation before taking a deep breath and yelling at the top of his lungs, “IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE?”

Both of them pause to listen as Baekhyun’s voice echoes off the surrounding buildings and fades into nothingness. Jongin gears up for his own participating shout, but before he can, Baekhyun yells again.

“IF THERE’S ANYONE THERE PLEASE DON’T SHOW YOURSELF. I REALLY WANT THIS DATE WITH JONGIN KIM—oof—I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he pleads at a more normal volume when Jongin starts attacking him. “I’ll play fair, okay?”

Or maybe Jongin can play dirty. He cups his hands to his mouth.

“CAN ANYBODY SAVE ME FROM BAEKHYUN BYUN?” The look Baekhyun throws him is equal parts scandalized and impressed, “I CAN’T SEEM TO GET RID OF HIM!”

Now it’s Jongin’s turn to get attacked, dissolving into giggles when Baekhyun tickles his side to get him to stop, and again when they both take a deep breath to shout something else, only to look at each other and burst out laughing. 

They trade insults like that, yelling them back and forth as they walk through the empty streets, trying their best to outdo one another, but most of all hoping that if someone is really here, they’ll be heard. 

Baekhyun’s last jab is still reverberating off the buildings when Jongin throws a hand out to stop him. 

“Did you hear that?”

A few banging sounds are coming from the alleyway up ahead. Baekhyun and Jongin share a brief look and then take off in the direction of the noise.

Twilight is taking over the city, and already this alleyway is bathed in shadows, but it doesn’t stop Jongin from taking a step into the darkness. 

“Hello?”

No answer. He takes another hesitant step forward and the banging comes again, much closer now. He squints, deflating a bit when he realizes that it’s not a person. It’s definitely an animal of some sort. Too big to be a raccoon or a possum and definitely not a cat. It’s probably someone’s gigantic dog, hungry without their owner to feed them and now looking through the dumpster for scraps. Poor thing.

“Jonginnie—”

Jongin, who had started making cooing noises to lure the animal closer, jumps back when the animal lifts its head and he realizes that it’s not a dog. He was wrong, it  _ is _ a cat. A big one. 

“Holy shit!”

Jongin leaps backward, slamming his back into the dumpster just as the tiger roars. It’s too late to make a quick escape now that they’ve been spotted.

“What do we do,” Baekhyun whispers. Jongin can feel him clutching his shirtsleeve like his life depends on it. 

“I don’t know,” he breathes back. Jongin vaguely remembers something about staying still in front of predators so he tries to lead Baekhyun backwards, taking slow step backs so as not to trigger the tiger into attacking at any sudden movements. Just as he’s about to clear the dumpster, the metal clasp on his backpack catches. The resulting clang makes both of them freeze in their tracks. The tiger roars again.

From behind them an engine revs. Both Baekhyun and Jongin whip their heads around just in time to see a motorcycle skid into view, stopping at the mouth of the alley. It’s rider jerks his head for them to come over, lifting the face shield on his helmet just enough so they can hear him.

“Get on."

They don’t have to be told twice, turning their back and running for safety. The tiger, spooked from the initial entrance, returns to the shadows when the rider revs his engine again. He makes sure they’re both situated and peels off without another word. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Dude! Oh my God, that was sick!!!”

The mysterious rider had driven them to safety and Baekhyun had barely let the man take his helmet off before he started excitedly yapping away. Jongin thanks him quietly.

The guy introduces himself as Minseok, shaking out his curly black hair and extending a hand towards each of them. It makes Minseok laugh when Baekhyun shakes his hand a bit too enthusiastically.

“It’s a good thing you were there,” Jongin says, interrupting Baekhyun as he tells Minseok he’s cool for the tenth time, “I think Baekhyun was about to cry.”

Baekhyun frowns, “Well, what’s a tiger doing in the middle of Chicago anyway?”

“My guess is that the zoo animals finally got hungry enough to come and see why they haven’t been fed in days,” Minseok theorizes. He’s rather handsome, Jongin notices. About mid-thirties with sharp features. “What are your names by the way?”

The way Baekhyun rushes to introduce himself like Jongin hadn’t just referred to him by name makes Jongin scoff. He tells Minseok his own name and ignores the questioning look Baekhyun sends his way. 

Minseok, however, just smiles. He gestures towards the building behind him. “Let’s go meet the girls.”

“Girls?” That means there’s even more people left behind. 

“Yeah, c’mon.”

Jongin temporarily forgets the weird feeling in his gut and follows Minseok and Baekhyun inside. 

  
  
  
  
  


The girls are introduced as Sooyoung and Yeri. Sooyoung is tall and beautiful—black hair cascading down her back in pretty waves. She smiles brightly at them as they enter. Yeri on the other hand, is a spunky teenager and clearly not shy judging from the way she barrels into them for a group hug. 

“I thought I’d never see a cute boy again,” she cries into Jongin’s shoulder. 

“Hey,” Minseok protests. Yeri sticks her tongue out at him.

“You’re not a boy,” She says, “You’re a man.”

“Okay, easy kiddo,” Minseok laughs. 

“She’s right, though,” Baekhyun whispers low enough that only Jongin hears. Jongin can’t figure out what’s with him. They’ve known the guy all of ten minutes and he’s already looking at him like he’s hung the moon. The uncomfortable feeling in his gut is back. 

After they finish with introductions, Baekhyun is not shy about asking Minseok to teach him how to ride his motorcycle. 

“Sure thing,” Minseok answers with a smile, “Maybe you can help me look for new people.”

“As long as there’s no tigers.”

“Tigers?” Sooyoung looks aghast and Baekhyun launches into the story of how they got there—looking to Minseok for his side of the story when his role comes up. 

Minseok explains that the three of them have spent the past few days roaming the city in search of others. It had been looking rather hopeless until now. No one has any suggestions as to how and why any of this happened, but what’s done is done and they can only look forward. 

An hour into their discussion about what will become of the Earth now that civilization has vanished, Sooyoung remembers that they haven’t offered them anything to eat yet, worrying that they must be famished after everything they’ve went through. She enlists Minseok help her in the kitchen and comes out a few minutes later with sandwiches for each of them.

Jongin has been mostly quiet since they arrived, and accepts the food with a small thank you. Baekhyun keeps sending him concerned looks, trying to catch his eye. Jongin doesn’t look at him.

Before they turn in for the night, Minseok offers them any one of the luxury apartments that occupy the building they’re in, joking about how it’s free real estate. The three of them, however, have all been staying together in this one. In a lonely city, it’s nice to have someone nearby. 

The two of them agree, and there’s still a couple of empty bedrooms in this one, so they decide to stay. 

“Guess the date is off then, huh?” Baekhyun says to Jongin once Minseok bids them goodnight. 

“Yeah...thank God.” There’s no real punch to it but Baekhyun still smiles sadly. 

“Goodnight, Jonginnie.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Morning, sleepyhead,” Sooyoung greets Jongin the next morning. She’s at the table cutting up a melon for breakfast and she offers him a piece when he sits down.

Jongin accepts it, yawning as he does so. “Where’s Baekhyun?”

He’s with Minseok learning how to ride his motorcycle. Yeri’s there too.” Sooyoung sets her knife down and takes a bite. Jongin’s expression must darken because Sooyoung hastens to add, “I’m sure you can still join them if you wanted too, they’re just on the street out front. Baekhyun said not to wake you because you liked your sleep.”

“No, it’s okay,” Jongin says, giving her a strained smile, “I didn’t want to learn anyway.” He stuffs his whole piece of melon in his mouth and heads back to his room. 

Jongin doesn’t know what’s gotten into him and why he feels so angry all of a sudden, but he takes a peek outside his window anyway to get a glimpse of what’s going on.

The apartment that they’re in is a few floors up but he can still see them alright. Yeri is off to the side sitting on the curb while Baekhyun is perched on the bike in the middle of the street. He’s gesturing for Minseok to come closer. Minseok obliges, laughing at whatever Baekhyun is saying to him. It must be something about the helmet being a bit too big on Baekhyun’s head. Jongin watches Minseok lean in to help fasten the strap a bit tighter— surely he didn’t have to be  _ that _ close. 

Jongin yanks the curtain closed, his heart beating a mile a minute. He sits back against the bed and tries to calm down. It’s no use; he’s finally able to put a name to the burning in his gut. Jealousy. 

Was he jealous of the way Baekhyun was looking at Minseok because he was so used to claiming all of Baekhyun’s attention and didn’t know what to do now that it wasn’t directed at him? Or was it because if Baekhyun could look at someone else like that then maybe his feelings for Jongin may not have been as strong as he implied?

Jongin is so confused. The more he thinks about it, the more complicated and tangled his feelings become. He needs to figure this out.

  
  
  
  
  


When Jongin finally comes out of his room a few hours later, the three riders are already back and sitting around the dining room table eating lunch. Jongin ignores Minseok’s greeting when he joins them, feeling like a petulant child. Baekhyun frowns at him.

“Are you feeling okay, Jonginnie?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“If you aren’t feeling well, we have a bit of medicine stocked up.” Minseok interjects, “You can take whatever you need.”

Jongin sighs, he can feel three pairs of eyes looking at him. “I said I was fine,” he grumbles.

A hand grabs his shoulder and yanks him up and out of his seat. Jongin hadn’t even noticed Baekhyun get up. “We’re going to talk,” he tells the table, and drags Jongin out into the hallway.

“Why are you being so rude to Minseok,” Baekhyun rounds on him as soon as they’re alone. “Shouldn’t you be happy we found him? The deal’s off, you’re finally rid of me like you wanted.”

Baekhyun looks genuinely sad. Jongin doesn’t like seeing that. Maybe he doesn’t want to be rid of him either. 

Without thinking, Jongin surges forward and kisses Baekhyun. The kiss is short but enthusiastic and, most importantly, it shuts Baekhyun up. Jongin pulls away just as quickly as he dove in. 

Baekhyun blinks rapidly, he’s out of breath. “Wha..aa..aaa..t??”

“I was just...,” Jongin isn’t quite sure he knows how to put it into words yet, but he liked it. He might like Baekhyun? “Checking something,” he finishes, lamely.

“And?” Baekhyun clears his throat, looking uncharacteristically hesitant.

“I think…” oh, what the hell. It was a nice kiss, he wouldn’t mind another. “I think I should check again,” Jongin decides and he pulls Baekhyun in again.

Kissing Baekhyun now makes him wonder why there was a time when the thought alone had made Jongin want to retch. As if on cue, Baekhyun decides to answer that musing.

“Wait, wait,” Baekhyun says, pushing Jongin off of him. “You don’t have like, Stockholm Syndrome or something, right? You want this?”

Right, it was his personality. “Don’t ruin this for yourself.”

“Nice, nice. Cool, cool, cool.”

“Are you freaking out?” Jongin asks.

Baekhyun kind of looks like he’s in between experiencing the best moment of his life puking. “I’m not freaking out. I’m totally chill. Kiss me again.”

Jongin laughs, “You’re freaking out. I thought you were some totally suave playboy, what happened?”

“It’s different when you have feelings for the person.” Baekhyun runs a hand through his hair, creating a mess. It’s kind of endearing. “Like huge, dumb crush feelings.”

“Crush feelings?” So he wasn’t exaggerating then.

“Yes. How many times must I tell you I like you, dumbass.”

Jongin shrugs, “I don’t know. I thought you were joking.”

Baekhyun scrubs his face in his hands, “There you go assuming again.”

“Fuck, now  _ I’m _ ruining it.”

Baekhyun peeks through his fingers, making eye contact with Jongin, and they burst into giggles. The situation must be equally bizarre for both of them. Never in a million years did Jongin expect to be confessing to Baekhyun Byun. But despite all the miscommunications and the awkwardness this feels right. This feels like them.

“Does this mean that the date is back on then?” Baekhyun asks hopefully, “Cause I’ve kinda been planning it for  _ so _ long.”

“I guess it is,” Jongin laughs, rolling his eyes affectionately, “You’re still going to have to woo me though.”

Baekhyun smirks and pulls Jongin closer, getting brave again now that his affections are being returned. “Way ahead of you.”

  
  
  
  
  


“Where the fuck are you taking me?” Jongin complains at what is probably the 50th flight of stairs they’ve climbed. He’s kept his mouth shut until now, so he thinks it’s well within his right.

“Stop complaining, I didn’t think this through."

“Clearly,” Jongin grumbles, watching Baekhyun’s back disappear into the next stairwell. A date on top of a skyscraper sounds romantic in theory, but when there’s no working elevators and you get sweaty before the date even starts, the romance kind of goes out the window. 

Baekhyun peeks his head back around the corner to check on Jongin with narrowed eyes. 

“We’re almost there, only like ten more flights.”

“Oh, joy.”

When they had returned from the hallway after confessing, all three of their new companions had looked at them knowingly. Jongin had thought that their flushed faces and inability to keep a straight face had given them away, but Minseok had informed them that he had heard them shouting when they first arrived to the city. He was waiting for them to figure it out. Jongin apologized then, for being so rude to him, cheeks flushed an even deeper red, and Minseok laughed it off.

Twelve flights of stairs later, Jongin finally catches up with Baekhyun at the top. “Couldn’t you have chosen a shorter building?” 

Baekhyun ignores him in favor of pushing open the door to the roof. He makes a little displeased sound that has Jongin worried for half a second that the door was going to be locked and this trek would have been worthless, but from what he can tell the door opened quite easily.

Baekhyun turns around and closes the door, “The date’s ruined.”

“Huh? Why what’s wrong?”

“It’s dark already,” he pouts.

“Okay, and?”

“We were supposed to have a romantic picnic while the sun sets, and now it’s all ruined. Let’s go.” 

Baekhyun brushes past him and starts to descend. But Jongin did not walk up all those stairs only to go straight back down, he was going through with this date no matter what. He grabs Baekhyun’s wrist and drags him back up and onto the roof. 

He barely makes it past the threshold when he’s stops in awe. Without power to the city almost all the light pollution is gone and the sky is illuminated with millions of glittering stars. Their light sparkles brighter than Jongin has ever seen before, reflecting off of the hundred buildings surrounding them. 

It’s beautiful. 

“Do you like it?” Baekhyun whispers beside him. It’s kind of cute how nervous he is. 

Jongin nods, too stunned to do much else. Jongin has seen hundreds of sunsets in his lifetime, but this beats them all. He grabs Baekhyun’s hand in his own to reassure him.

Baekhyun smiles in relief, “I’m glad.”

Jongin still isn’t used to seeing Baekhyun so serious. He likes it in a way, but it doesn’t stop him from wondering where the loudmouth, goofball Baekhyun went. He, himself can’t help but egg Baekhyun on.

“What happened to ‘ _ I know some ways we could have some fun’  _ or ‘ _ I’m gonna romance the pants off of you’, _ ” Jongin asks, blinking up at Baekhyun innocently.

“Hey, I’m trying not to mess this up now that I’ve finally got you,” Baekhyun protests, and then adds, “Of course those offers are always still on the table.”

He wiggles his eyebrows in a fashion that Jongin is much more used to. It makes him laugh, “We’ll see.”

If anything, Jongin is not climbing those stairs again until the morning, so they’ve got all night up here. Once upon a time that thought of being trapped anywhere with Baekhyun Byun for more than a few minutes would have abhorred him, but now, it doesn’t seem half bad. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> if you made it this far, thanks for sticking with me! let me know what you think <3
> 
> -i did watch some documentaries/read about what would happen if people just up and disappeared one day and one of those things was that airplanes would still be able to fly for several hours until they ran out of gas and gravity took over which is totally wild and terrifying  
> -most of the other crazy things that would happen would take weeks or years and we're only dealing with the first few days here so sadly i didn't get to explore them  
> -zoo animals would break out of their cages (though sadly, the chicago lincoln park zoo doesn't have tigers anymore...but shh)
> 
> anyway, thanks again for reading!!


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